IT DOESN’T GET EASIER

Caleb got an email on Wednesday saying that Thursday’s fly-out had been postponed due to a cyclone evacuation and to contact the office Friday afternoon for an update. Sweet mother of all winds!!!

While I would never wish for a cyclone, and sincerely hope that no-one is ever hurt or their property is damaged, I am very grateful for cyclone evacuations. Evacuation means free time, time you didn’t bank on, and that makes you feel like anything can happen because nothing is planned. Because Caleb must be available at all time so he can get back to work at short notice all we can really do is hover around town, and just enjoy each other’s company. And try to fill in the blanks as we go.

And so we did.

And we caught up with some family and were oh so joyous and relaxed because of our ‘free’ time.

And then Caleb checked his email Thursday afternoon, and realised he was flying out Friday early morning… And with that everything seemed to drop.

You know that feeling of watching everything in slow motion? And like the floor is sucked away from underneath you? In my heart and mind, I was already banking on having Caleb home for at least Friday as well, and when that gets ‘taken away’, it almost takes the joy of our ‘free day’ away, and the whole situation feel worse than if he had just gone back as scheduled. It hits hard.

And of course, having just shared the holidays together, forgotten all about responsibilities and clocks, and just having lived, makes the transition so much harder.

I don’t know about you though, but even after almost 11 years of FIFO, it always sucks when they leave.

It just never gets easier.

Having kids hasn’t helped the situation either. Suddenly you’re on your own having to deal with the day to day negotiations, while attempting to cook dinner, and find that missing toy RIGHT NOW, please mum. It’s nothing we can’t do, and so many other single parents deal with this every day, it is the transition from having an extra pair of hands on deck, and having relaxed into that space, and to suddenly doing it all alone. And I know, for so many of us, we also have the added burden of living removed from family and friends, so we really are doing it all on our own.

We are a strong breed of women!!

The kids and I found ourselves feeling mighty lonely Friday morning. We’d had late nights, neither the kids nor I wanted to let daddy go, and getting out of bed took a lot of effort. Kai ended up spending the whole day in his PJs, as we ticked our errands of the list, and I felt like we just scraped through. We had our usual chat about being a team and helping each other out while daddy is away… It fell on deaf ears as per usual.

So, I could feel the tension brewing this morning. Naya gets snappy with Kai, which in turn makes him lash out more, and a few hours of that and I start behaving in a less desirable way too. I had to do something to get us out of the house, to change the energy and put some joy into the mix.

I decided on a craft I have been wanting to do for a long time, but haven’t gotten around to: Calm Down Bottles! It turned out we needed glitter glue, so off to the toy shop we went, which is always interesting with two wired kids in tow, but in their defence, they did really well. We only left with what we came to get, and no-one cried in the process. Winning!

It took about half an hour to make our bottles, and I am hooked! They are so gorgeous, I want to make more. If they don’t work for the kids, they certainly do the trick for me. I am in love with sparkles. It’s tragic really.

It does takes effort, but often breaking the tension and doing something different really changes the energy.

What you put in comes back tenfold!

I’m not sure what we’ll do tomorrow, and if I can pull another trick out of my hat, but if not I can send them to their rooms and tell them not to come out until the glitter has settled. That should buy me time for at least a cuppa, right?